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ABSTRACT: Noam Chomsky once said, like most technology the internet has mixed effects. It’s a neutral instrument. Technology, like anything else produced by man, has both beneficial and negative effects on us as people, depending on how it is used. Nothing is flawless.
KEYWORDS: Technology, Internet, social media, virtues and shortcomings of technology.
Applying scientific knowledge to real-world problems is what is known as technology. It can also be characterized as the idea of new things. The term “Internet” refers to a field of technology that describes a large-scale computer network that offers a range of information and communication services, which garnered connected networks that use standardized communication protocols. The positive impact of technology on society is immense and cannot be underemphasized. Let me quickly mention a few of its benefits, it has fostered improved means of transportation, travel bookings are done in the comfort of one’s home.
Meetings are organized virtually; people attend while on the go. Procedures are now streamlined, consider what it was like to live in the early 1900s when all coffee beans were gathered and roasted by hand. Machines have transformed our perceptions of time and efficiency, particularly in high-tech businesses where streamlining data is the standard and the Internet is the backbone of operations.
Processing automation allows everyone to relax and lets machines handle everything. It’s a sight to behold, however, others argue that learning to brew your own coffee is still worthwhile. We can say technology today underpins everything we do, and it is accessible to both young and old.
Even as we allude to these benefits, there are lots of negative impacts of technology on society. Mobile phones now flood the market even in developing countries making them accessible to everyone, parent purchase internet-enabled devices for underage children. The emergence of social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook which ought to be restricted to adults are now opened to children, which is improper.
We continue to see the beneficial effects of technology on the internet, as highlighted earlier. We are gradually deserting newspapers because we wonder why we should spend money on them when we can simply get the latest trends online. Therefore, we may conclude that using the internet reduces the cost of money. An eleven-year-old kid was assigned to study a subject covered in class, and as he was working on it, he instantly turned on his data. He found the TikTok notice to be quite intriguing, so he chose to watch the video and continued scrolling to watch other videos until falling asleep. He discovered the next morning that his addiction to social media was keeping him from doing value-adding things.
The advent of technology has also enhanced the popular advance-free fraud that has metamorphosed into what we know today as “yahoo yahoo” and is mostly done by our youths.
In conclusion, we may infer that technology has made our daily activities stress-free, but the adverse effects are so numerous to mention.
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